Death Penalty and War

Over at Retrospectacle, Shelly has a question for all of us:

"Are you for or against the death penalty, or (if its conditional), in what cases? Furthermore, do you believe that societies that sanction war are hypocritical for opposing the death penalty?"

Personally, I am more or less opposed to the death penalty. I say "more or less" because every now and then, someone does something so absolutely evil that I have a hard time remembering that I really am opposed to the death penalty. In general, though, I don't think we need it - "supermax" prisons can keep even the worst offenders from being a danger to society. The Innocence Project has also conclusively demonstrated that quite a few people on death row were actually innocent. If we don't need the death penalty to protect society, and there is a risk of killing someone who is innocent, I don't see how the death penalty can possibly be justified.

War is a different matter entirely. I am opposed to wars in cases where there is not a clear and present danger to the country that's starting the war. I am not opposed to wars where the action is being taken to protect citizens from an immediate and significant danger. Nations have not merely the right but an actual duty to protect their citizens.

To put that into terms of current events, I don't think that the Iraq war met those criteria, but I do think the invasion of Afghanistan did. In the case of Iraq, we had at best evidence (incorrect, inconclusive, and inflated) that the Iraqis might have weapons that could, in other hands, pose a danger to Americans. In the case of Afghanistan, we had just been attacked by a terrorist group that was being sheltered and actively supported by what passed for the government of the country. The terrorist group was (and is) still a threat to Americans, and the Taliban was entirely unwilling to stop providing them with shelter and aid.